Salk A.

To: Proximity Video Team
From: Adam Salk
Subject: Proposal for report on espn3.com
Date: April 15, 2010

The industry of online video content has boomed as users are looking for free streaming content that is easily accessible. For many people, online sports content is a favorite go-to, especially when they live out of their teams state. I propose to write a report that details the effect, and needs for online sports content delivered by espn and other sources.

Need

Sports content is dominated by one major network, ESPN, and then each city has its own sports network for local teams. The need for users to be able to watch out of market programming has broken into two main categories.

· Pay for a cable or satellite subscription that allows you to access sports content not provided by your basic cable, or watch content online.
· The first is an expensive, crowded option that generally provides users with more content than they can utilize.
· The second option is generally cheap, or even illegal, with users finding streaming sports on the Internet.
· Quality online content is hard to come by, and sites that provide good feeds are costly.

Users are demanding a reliable, and affordable way to watch sports on the Internet. Major sports organizations, such as the MLB provide content through a year subscription that costs $130. Users do not want to pay this steep price to watch every team across the league. Users generally have one team they wish to watch, and want to see those out of market games for free. Users who demand affordable content have to suffer by watching poor quality video. There is a need to find a mean between these two extremes.

Topics

The propsed report: “Affordable sports content on the Internet” will deal with the following topics:

· The cost of cable and satellite sports content subscriptions
· The cost of major sports associations (mlb, nba, nhl, ect.) private online packages
· Ease of use and overcrowded content
· Quality of online content
· Espn3.com and its solution to provide free content (although limited)

Sources

Hankinson, B. (2010, April 16). Is it Worth it to dump your tv for online streaming?. Retrieved from http://blogs.chron.com/tubular/archives/2010/04/is_it_worth_it.html

This article gives a good background on the movement of network video content available online. It discusses the success of Hulu and other sites. It also highlights the affordability and user friendliness.


Turner sports to deliver full court press for nba playoffs . (2010, April 13). Retrieved from http://www.nba.com/2010/news/04/13/turner.nbaplayoffs/

This site highlights what the NBA will be offering users for the 2010 playoffs. It shows how major sports associations are trying to offer content through all forms of media, and how their hopes is for people to have their laptops open while watching the games on TV.




http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sports/blogs/Watch-This/ESPN360-becomes-ESPN3-in-April---The-portable-ESPN-84040202.html

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-espn360-makes-way-for-espn3-but-biz-model-stays-the-same/


http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2010/03/espn3d-adds-state-farm-home-run-derby-to-schedule/